That said, Princess Zelda could have the unique potential to unlock her hidden power and fix Hyrule’s fractured timeline in Tears of the Kingdom . By recovering the memories of her past lives and sacred power, Zelda could gain all the wisdom necessary to finally face Demise’s malice and repair the timeline’s broken cycles. Between the direct references to past eras in BOTW and the apparent evidence of time travel mechanics in the upcoming sequel, it seems that a plot focused on repairing Zelda’s timeline is within the realm of possibility. Of course, this is all speculation until the game is released next May, but the title Tears of the Kingdom _ may have been one massive **_The Legend of Zelda ** spoiler hiding in plain si

The kingdom of Hyrule was established by zelda switch 2 Editionand the Hero of Sky after the events of Skyward Sword , and its name was chosen in honor of the Goddess Hylia. As Hyrule is threatened by Ganon’s curse of malice in each era, however, Hylia’s failure to defeat The Legend of Zelda 's Demise before her mortal reincarnation has essentially doomed her peaceful kingdom to cyclical suffering. In a sense, Hylia serves as both the protector of Hyrule as well as the mechanism behind which its very timeline can be woven and unraveled. As such, Tears of the Kingdom may be a grim but fitting name indicating that Hyrule’s god-princess will mourn the fate of her kingdom upon realizing the true extent of her power’s role throughout its hist

BOTW ’s developers have stated that the game takes place at the end of the Zelda timeline. While this leaves its exact placement ambiguous, Link’s lost memories suggest that he and the other characters are familiar with the timeline’s legends of old. Zelda distinctly references the Heroes of Sky, Time, and Twilight, and she and her fellow Champions are well aware that Link is the very same Hero reincarnated in their era. As such, it seems that the Triforce’s keepers in BOTW have some understanding of their place in the broader scale of this universe’s destiny, which places a lot of pressure on Zelda to succeed in unlocking her power before Ganon’s ret

The Twili are the race at the center of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess , and fans are given two versions of them. Zant, the usurper, and his followers of shadow beasts are both corrupted Twili and other creatures. The other Twili consists of Midna, the rightful ruler of the Twilight Realm, and most of its citizens which are primarily peace

If time travel is present in Tears of the Kingdom in some form, it carries a few implications. The first is that its version of Hyrule would be very different from BOTW . That much was already known, but if Link is getting sent back to the past, and especially if it's as far back as the first rise of Calamity Ganon, then it could be practically unrecognizable, and have an all-new cast of characters either unrelated to those in BOTW or with only distant relations. It could also mean that players will see Ganon's intitial rise first-hand, in addition to other events such as the construction of the Guardians and Divine Beasts, which BOTW 's sequel could use in unexpected ways if

Without a doubt, the Hylian race is one of the most interesting in Zelda and features the primary characters of the franchise like Link and Zelda. The Hylians aren't too much different from regular Humans but originate from the sky and are the founders of Hyr

While much of Hyrule’s past has been left intentionally obscured by the overarching Zelda timeline, there are shreds of details present throughout the canon games and companion books that may add deeper context to the series’ main events. Namely, the Hyrulean Civil War mentioned in Ocarina of Time and the Interloper War alluded to during Twilight Princess are two major events in Hyrule's history that have yet to be thoroughly detailed. It’s possible that BOTW ’s First Great Calamity is actually another name for the Interloper War, which would place almost every single game on the Zelda timeline between BOTW ’s two apocalyptic Calamit

Time and time travel are prominent aspects in Zelda games, even putting aside The Legend of Zelda series' split timelines , so it's far from outside the realm of possibility for it to show up in Tears of the Kingdom . Age of Calamity especially brings the possibility of time travel that much closer with its story of an alternate Great Calamity and a time-traveling robot. However, it's not certain that Link will travel to the past and stay there. There are other possibilities, such as short quests where Link is temporarily transported to the past, or ones where he experiences it as a flashback similar to the memories in BO

Popular theories draw connections between the Twili and the Zonai, including the serpent imagery noted in both the Palace of Twilight and the latest TOTK trailer, and the distinct blue-green hue of their magic. As such, the Zonai tribe’s disappearance could be directly related to the banishment of the Twili’s ancestors, making it possible for these tribes to actually be the same. If that’s the case, however, then the Zelda timeline implies that the Zonai vanished from Hyrule sometime after Skyward Sword when the residents of Skyloft repopulated the surface world, placing their disappearance significantly earlier in the kingdom of Hyrule's past than the events of BO